Magalu has just become the first major retail company in the world to offer a feature that allows customers to complete the entire purchasing process via WhatsApp—from product recommendations based on individual wants and needs, to payment and after-sales service. The use of Lu's WhatsApp—a feature based on artificial intelligence—has been released, in a first phase, to 1 million repeat Magalu customers, with a purchase history of at least 10 products per year. By the end of 2025, the company's entire base of more than 30 million active consumers will be able to search, learn about, choose, pay for, and track the product delivery process without leaving Lu's WhatsApp, from Magalu. .
“After a combination of extensive research and an intense development cycle over the past year, we have managed to offer a novel, end-to-end solution.”, says André Fatala, Vice President of Digital Platforms at Magalu. “In practice, thanks to the advancement of artificial intelligence, each customer will be served as if they were unique. Lu understands their needs, their personal tastes, how much and how they want to pay, and offers the most suitable product, quickly and intuitively.” ”
To do this, Lu, in its AI commerce version, will access the entire product catalog of Magalu (1P) and the 300,000 sellers on the marketplace (3P). That's more than 37 million published listings. Customer interaction can be done by text, voice, or even by sending images – exactly as it happens in WhatsApp communication done by humans. Payment, via Pix or credit card, is made within the conversation, without the customer being transferred to a website or app, which speeds up the purchase process and reduces friction. .
“Our team, together with our partners, worked to achieve an AI commerce functionality that would go beyond support for purchases in a conventional channel,” says Caio Gomes, Director of Data and Artificial Intelligence at Magalu. “From the beginning, we wanted to create an exceptional salesperson who deeply understands each customer and each product, and who can make the perfect connection between them, with the human warmth that characterizes our corporate culture.” ”
The development of Lu's WhatsApp was done by the Luizalabs team, Magalu's technology division, in partnership with Meta, owner of WhatsApp, and Google. The system was built entirely in accordance with the General Data Protection Law: no sensitive information is stored, and the stored data follows the privacy security standard already established by Magalu. .
A day of lively shopping filled with conversation. .
WhatsApp was chosen as the conversational platform for Magalu's first AI Commerce experience due to its huge acceptance and usage among Brazilians. The Meta app is currently installed on 98% of active mobile phones and is the most used in the country, according to the Panorama Mobile Time/Opinion Box survey, released in March 2024. .
“The launch of Lu's WhatsApp represents a significant advancement in the application of artificial intelligence to Brazilian digital retail. The partnership between Magalu and Meta demonstrates how technological collaboration can create innovative solutions, capable of transforming the shopping journey and bringing companies and consumers even closer together,” states Conrado Leister, Vice President and General Director of Meta in Brazil. “We are proud to contribute to this pioneering project, which reinforces the potential of WhatsApp as a strategic platform for business.” ”
The Lu account on WhatsApp, launched in 2018, is already used regularly by a base of 15 million customers, who – until now – could track their purchases made in other Magalu channels. .
To initiate the conversational commerce process, in this first phase of the launch, the customer needs to receive an invitation directly in Lu's WhatsApp account. Only users with accounts already created on the Magalu website or app can interact with the artificial intelligence. At the beginning of the conversation on WhatsApp, Lu requests the customer's email or CPF (Brazilian tax ID) for identification. Following that, they receive a code for validation. From there, simply request Lu's help to make the purchase. .
In audio interactions, Lu is capable of understanding slang, regionalisms, pauses, and casual explanations of the customer's needs. Regardless of the type of contact and according to the intention and specificity of the requested product, she asks the user clarifying questions in order to deliver the best recommendation. .
It's also possible to interact with Lu regarding other matters, such as asking about the weather or even having a chat about everyday topics, but her main function is as a sales assistant, and therefore she will steer the topics towards this role. As a security measure, Lu interrupts the conversation in the event of offensive and sexual content, as well as content involving swearing, harassment, or violence. .
AI Multi-Agent
Lu's WhatsApp project – which took just over a year to develop – uses Google's proprietary AI LLM models, and a mix of other open-source models (which have publicly available source code), hosted on Magalu Cloud. This ensures access to resources such as advanced reasoning, planning, and multimodal thinking capabilities, as well as the flexibility, customization, and low latency of the models hosted in the company's cloud – fundamental requirements for the operation of a project of this size. .
The construction architecture uses hundreds of multi-agents, which provides the freedom to interact with diverse systems, such as search, recommendation, audio transcription, among others, allowing users to communicate in whatever way they prefer, via voice, text, or images. .
